Tuesday, April 29, 2014

QUITTING STORY (1)

In the beginning of April I was asked to help Dave to quit smoking. His wife asked me, knowing that Dave had tried so many times and his last attempt made him smoke again after 2 weeks, even more than before. He was too proud to ask for help and besides he considered his duty to make it alone, as far as nobody had helped him start, 30 years ago – his wife said.

Typical, I thought.

I met Dave in his garage. He was skeptical about the help he could get and considered himself doomed. In spite of the new, severe chest pain, in spite of the doc’s advice, in spite of his own will, he was trembling so badly and he was so irritable without smoking that he was unable to stay free of cigarettes longer and behave like a normal person. E-cig, medical advice, medication, NRTs, drops, pills, sprays, lozenges, teas and what not, all of them failed to help.

I asked him about his first cigarette. Alone, in the toilet, coughing and spitting. He wanted to be like and with the tough guys in school.

Therefore he was not at all the only responsible for starting to smoke, I needed to say in loud voice.

The NEW,2014 fast quitting plan rose Dave’s interest. He needed only few clues about motivation and he started working diligently to his personal reasons to stop smoking and stay away of the habit for the rest of his life.

Too good, too easy to be true.

In deed. The next day - Dave’s quitting day - he was already anxious, anticipating wild, impossible cravings, tremblings to make him unable to work and quarrels with everyone. I told him that it would be different, totally different this time. He had already started to find out and use things he had not Known before, about the manipulative addiction, about the brain only partly able to fight and win against nicotine, about the strong reasons to empower the fighting brain…I continued some good minutes till he calmed down. I noticed his LIST and I asked him to read it, supposing that his own quitting motivation would comfort and put him at ease. In my dreams.